Brave browser turned transparent and cannot be used or uninstalled

[Mattches]

Does this occur if you first close Brave entirely before attempting to uninstall?

[baseinux]

I tried closing Brave entirely before attempting to uninstall too. I can confirm it still happens, and it will open a new Brave instance

[donniedarkouk]

Same here - I closed all instances but still couldn’t uninstall

[Govin]

Yes. If I try to uninstall with any Brave window open, I get an error message telling me to close all windows first.

[Asaviour]

Tried to rename to Chrome.exe but still not working I’m afraid. I’m not using any anti-virus and Windows Defender is disabled.

Tried re-adding --disable-gpu to target shortcut and that is now working (this site doesn’t seem to display the double dash correctly unless you add a space between the dashes and then delete the space) - so instead of copying from here I manually typed it in and that worked.

Would prefer to have hardware acceleration working but it’s a workaround for now.

[Govin]

I’m not 100% sure, if that was enough, but I went to directory C:\Program Files\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\Application (I’ve opened file localization from my task bar, where I start Brave from), and changed the name of “brave.exe” to “chrome.exe” there - it did not help. As I mentioned in one of my posts before - I’ve donwnloaded Chrome just to check it and it worked properly.

I am using Windows Defender. Brave is whitelisted in both incoming and outgoing rules.

[True]

I have also experienced the issue. Using the –disable-gpu fixed it for me.

Chrome version was this first then did an update to

both versions worked fine

Also checked Edge:

After the resolution I checked my brave version and it is

GPU: RTX 5080 driver version: 580.88

Renaming brave.exe to chrome.exe did not work for me. Only using windows defender with no third party antivirus

[THC]

Add me to the list… win11 24h2 up to date. Nvidia rtx 2070 super up to date drivers.

Brave launched into a blank white window that doesn’ respond to anything. No windows, no address bar, no menu icons, no lines… only window borders. Just froze before anything could load. I had over 200 windows open and only one address would show while mousing over the taskbar icon. The windows remove program uninstaller freezes (or gets caught in a loop) and won’t uninstall.

Did y’all force a bad beta version on us? The version in task manager kept saying 139.1.something. and I avoid betas like the plague.

[wykyd]

Changing to chrome.exe didn’t work for me. Wouldn’t rolling back the update fix the problem for now? Nightly seems to work fine, I just don’t feel like importing everything to nightly build.

[JustShino]

I think i found the issue and is related to D3D9

Try open it with the -disable-gpu command and then go to “brave://flags/” and look for the “Choose ANGLE graphics backend” option and change it to **“D3D11”
**
then close the browser and remove the -disable-gpu command

Now just make sure Hardware Acceleration is on

[kamil]

Definitely not a BETA. That was the next release that pushed out Chromium 139 via 1.81.x as per the schedule via https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Brave-Release-Schedule#release-channel-dates. However, it looks like there’s some type of bug that some users are experiencing that’s related to HWA (Hardware Acceleration). Looks like –disable-gpu fixes the issue for almost everyone experiencing the above. We’re looking into it and trying to figure what could be causing the above and will roll out a HF when we find the cause and prepare a solution/fix.

[kamil]

Try launching brave using –disable-gpu. Seems to be working for most users as a temporary solution.

[baseinux]

Is the uninstall behavior bugged, too? It does not seem like expected behavior from the customer’s support replies

[Popdupe]

yes, the uninstall window is also bugged. The window is there but invisible.

[kamil]

I’m guessing that the issue with uninstalling re: the windows being “invisible” is directly related to Brave not rendering on certain machines when HWA is enabled.

[JebusDev]

This works fine for me, just add a space between the quotes and the –disable-gpu

[gon]

i have the same issue also i just fix it by adding this –disable-gpu but i hope devs find solution immediately not using hardware acceleration is just very laggy to me…

[GingrBiscuit]

I am also having this issue. Is there any chance of a rollback to a more stable version? Using Brave without hardware acceleration is frustratingly choppy.

I have an RTX 4070 Super and my Windows is fully updated.

Edit: The nightly build seems to be working normally.

[kamil]

Thank you to everyone who tried renaming brave.exe → chrome.exe. Seems like that doesn’t work and the only current workaround is to run Brave with –disable-gpu which isn’t ideal.

Going through all the responses, it seems like Nighly is working for everyone. Could the people who are affected also try BETA and see if that works? Trying to narrow down if there’s an actual issue with the builds or something in the user profile that could be causing the issues. At least it will narrow down the window re: which versions are affected. You can find the BETA via https://brave.com/download-beta or download the latest current version via the following:

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v1.82.140/BraveBrowserStandaloneBetaSetup.exe (x64)

Has anyone who is affected try launching with a new profile? This will help narrow down things re: if it’s profile related. If the issue happens on a fresh install, then it’s something directly wrong with the Brave/client. If it works fine, there’s something within the profile that’s causing the rendering issues. Example:

• Ensure that Brave is set to run with –disable-gpu (should help with blank windows when uninstalling)
• Ensure that you either rename or backup your release profile folder located via:

C:\Users\<your user name>\AppData\Local\BraveSoftwar\Brave-Browser

You’ll want to either rename the above or back it up so when you remove Brave, it doesn’t delete your profile. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT OR YOU’LL LOSE YOUR PROFILE. For Example:

• rename \AppData\Local\BraveSoftwar\Brave-Browser –> \AppData\Local\BraveSoftwar\Brave-Browser-Backup
• make a backup of the folder and move it somewhere safe
• uninstall Brave and re-install the latest version
• Brave will launch using a new profile

Does the issue still occur with a brand new profile? When done testing/checking the above, simply rename your old/main profile to \AppData\Local\BraveSoftwar\Brave-Browser or move it back into \AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\ but ensure that the folder is named Brave-Browser.

Again, please be careful so you don’t nuke your main profile. Just make sure the new one doesn’t replace yours, hence renaming or move it out of that location.

Basically want to know if the issue happens with a brand new profile for the users seeing the issue.

[kamil]

Can someone also try the following to see if this resolves the rendering issues?

• ensure you’re running Brave via –disable-gpu so your windows actually render
• go into brave://settings/privacy and disable Block Microsoft Recall
• once disabled, restart the machine without –disable-gpu

Does that help/fix the issue? Or does the issue still happen even with Recall disabled?